A new "manifesto" from five senior Western military commanders finds: "The risk of further [nuclear] proliferation is imminent and, with it, the danger that nuclear war fighting, albeit limited in scope, might become possible. The first use of nuclear weapons must remain in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction." The document is likely to be discussed at the April NATO summit in Bucharest. The authors are Gen. John Shalikashvili, ex-NATO commander and ex-chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff; Germany's Gen. Klaus Naumann; the Netherlands' Gen. Henk van den Breemen; Admiral Jacques Lanxade of France; and Lord Inge of the UK. The document is said to include Lord Inge's recommendation: "To tie our hands on first use or no first use removes a huge plank of deterrence." (The Telegraph, Jan. 24; The Guardian, Jan. 22)

Activists from the US-based groups CodePink and Juventud Bolivariana launched a "Most Wanted" campaign against Cuban-born former US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) "asset" Luis Posada Carriles in Miami on Jan. 12, demanding that the US government designate him a terrorist and comply with a Venezuelan request for his extradition. Since 2005 Venezuela has been seeking to bring Posada, a naturalized Venezuelan citizen, to trial in connection with the 1976 bombing of a Cuban civilian airliner in which 73 people died. Posada is under a deportation order in the US, but since the US refused to send him either to Cuba or to Venezuela, he was conditionally released from US detention on April 19, 2006. He is now living in Miami.

Philip Agee, a US citizen and former agent of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), died in Havana, Cuba on Jan. 7 at age 72, according to US news reports. Louis Wolf, a friend and collaborator, said the cause of death was peritonitis. Agee had been living with his wife, Giselle Roberge Agee, in Hamburg, Germany, but the couple maintained an apartment in Havana and visited frequently. Since 2000 Agee had been running Cuba Linda,
an online agency arranging visits to Cuba for US residents. (The website reported that Agee died on Jan. 8.)

Yemen has called on the US to free all detainees at the Guantánamo Bay prison camp, saying the move would generate global good-will towards Washington. "I hope that the United States releases all those held at Guantánamo, based on the principles of human rights, freedom and justice upon which your country was founded," President Ali Abdullah Saleh told President George Bush in a letter. "I am sure that such an undertaking would draw a wide positive response from peoples and countries across the world." Some 100 Yemenis are held at Guantanamo, making them the largest group among the approximately 275 detainees there. (Reuters, Jan. 12)

Moribund National ID Act Revived by Spitzer-Chertoff Love Fest

By A. Kronstadt, The Shadow

A Dec. 12 Daily Kos piece resurrecting the old CIA-cocaine connection is rapidly making its way around the Internet conspirosphere. Below a YouTube video showing a private jet flying over a tropical landscape and footage of Mexican troops guarding seized cargo, it states: "This Florida based Gulfstream II jet aircraft # N987SA crash landed on September 24, 2007 after it ran out of fuel over Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula it had a cargo of several tons of Cocaine on board now documents have turned up on both sides of the Atlantic that link this Cocaine Smuggling Gulfstream II jet aircraft # N987SA that crashed in Mexico to the CIA who used it on at least 3 rendition flights from Europe and the USA to Guantanamo's infamous torture chambers between 2003 to 2005." (Link and bad grammar from original.)

The legal advisor to the Convening Authority for Military Commissions at Guantanamo Bay testified before members of Congress Dec. 11 that evidence gathered from interrogation techniques such as waterboarding may be admissible during military commission proceedings if it is "reliable and probative." Speaking before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security, Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas W.Hartmann declined to answer senators' questions regarding whether waterboarding is illegal when used by or against Americans.

The CIA's admission that it filmed the interrogation of terrorism suspects and then destroyed the tapes will kill any chances of convictions, attorneys representing Guantanamo Bay prisoners say. "First, it's a criminal offence to destroy evidence," said Clive Stafford Smith of the legal group Reprieve. "Second, if you do, the American case law is quite clear: the charges get dismissed against the individual if it's evidence that would have helped the defense." Stafford Smith, who represents seven Guantanamo inmates, said, "Now, because they've tortured them, they've made the job of putting them on trial very much more difficult."